


Burns

by Blacklyra



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Burns, Family, Gen, Implied Character Death, escapist behaviors, post AC3, somehow alive again, still tragic anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1265995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blacklyra/pseuds/Blacklyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desmond resorts back to his old habits but soon finds that the world will move on without him. And not always in the best of ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burns

 

The first few months after "the end" are a blur of loss and agony, but he adjusts to it with time.

Desmond Miles can always adjust, change; because he spent nine years lying to everyone he's ever met and wryly likes to think that he's gotten quite good at it by now if he tries. He knows if anyone finds out his life will complicate itself again in ways he was never ready for. The man's only twenty-five, but he feels the exhaustion of a sixty year old. So he does what he's always done best.

Desmond lies.

He lets his hair grow out and dyes it, changes his name and style of dress, wears contacts, and emulates the accent of a Syrian ancestor.

He disappears from knowledge and recognition.

He doesn't feel like he owes anyone anything anymore.

Eventually, Desmond reclaims his old life, or the one he wanted anyway.

He learns to forge passports and IDs, going to lengths he never went to before. Because he's not trying to hide, not really.

He's trying to become someone who never existed.

The name and background Desmond fabricates becomes legal, real. He seals up the holes until his " _facade_ " is an actual citizen recognized in the American census, instead of merely a skin-deep mask. Soon enough, he's pushing twenty-seven and the air stinks of alcohol while the clink of shot glasses serving as background noise in a way that feels strangely comforting.

Drunks are curious people when they aren't sharing their own life stories, asking about the scars and bandages eternally covering his disfigured right hand, and Desmond is always quick to spin a bullshit tale to quell them. It's a miracle he can still use it at all after That. He's even fully prepared a stockpile of various lies for nosy strangers when he's in too good of a mood to tell them to fuck off because obviously the mutilation is a bit of a sore subject for him still. There's the adventurous stories, the short-and-to-the-point ones, and the fanciful ones invented for the sole purpose of entertaining those lost in their cups.

Like always, he's skilled at lying, even when its casual at most.

Desmond's only had to reacquire his caution once, when an older man with hair long gone gray walked into the establishment with a worn-out expression and an aura that made those he passed close to fall suddenly silent. He ignored everyone else with flinty eyes and went straight up to the bar and asked for "something hard and strong." Desmond complied because he'd seen people like this occasionally; broken or damaged men or women who just desperately needed something to soothe their pain. He served the man a Black Russian, who quite nearly snatched the drink out of his hand, and the action allowed Desmond shocked silence when he caught a glance at the patron's face.

He didn't make any of the usual small talk this time, quietly refilling the man's glass with an averted gaze and made no indication that he had recognized him.

Time passed and other customers slowly filed out, leaving the two of them almost alone.

The man asked for another and this time Desmond put his foot down, more out of guilt than the responsibility his job tasked him with, "Sir, I think you've had enough."

"It never is..." The customer grumbled quietly, hands firmly cupped around the empty glass as though it were a precious treasure, though the bartender knew for a fact that he wasn't referring to the alcohol at all. "I thought...we'd make a difference... But instead, everyone just...dies around us. Even...even my wife couldn't..." He chokes on the emotion in his words and says nothing more. But the unspoken meaning is palpable and unmistakable.

And Desmond freezes, hands gripping the tap much too hard.

Too tightly, and he can't really tell how much because the nerves governing sensation in his fingers have long since been incinerated.

Yet there's ice in his veins and all he can do is stop himself from shaking.

Closing time has come and gone.

The gray-haired man finally chooses to leave, piling all the cash he has in his pockets onto the bar before slipping out into the night as if he had never been there in the first place. Desmond can only stare blankly at the money, hardly paying attention to the fact that it's roughly equal to a full month's paycheck and knowing that the customer did so completely on purpose. The bartender gathers it all up, even though he has no real intention of ever spending it, and finally locks down the bar for the night while relying on habit instead of his weakened senses.

He doesn't need to be told that it is the one and only time that William Miles will ever visit that establishment.

When Desmond reenters his quiet apartment, the first thing he does is dig a locked box out from underneath his bed and prizing it open to reveal the object inside. It immediately hits him with a harsh sense of nostalgia that floods through his veins.

The blade is dull and dusty, the trigger catching when he tries to eject it.

The weapon's ideal is a relic, one that he can feel dying with every day that passes.

And Desmond finally collapses onto his lonely bed, clutching the hidden blade with everything he has left with fingers that are too burned and broken to be of any use to anyone anymore, and finds that he is too numb to even cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Fail at happy endings. Here have a tragedy instead.


End file.
